


Ready

by entirely_the_wrong_sort



Series: The Early Years: Drabbles [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7014412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_the_wrong_sort/pseuds/entirely_the_wrong_sort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's thoughts on his first day at Stanford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ready

The room is small and empty. There are two desks, two closets and two beds, both bare. He’ll have to buy some bedsheets tomorrow, but for now, he’s slept on far worse than a bare mattress. He dumps his worldly possessions - two duffel bags and a rucksack - on the desk and draws up the window blinds. 

The courtyard is heaving with seniors waving campus maps and flyers for parties; excited and lost-looking freshmen; parents carrying boxes and hugging their children goodbye for the semester. Sam watches a girl right below his window being held by her crying kid sister as her father babbled beside them with a proud smile on his face. He turns away from the scene and begins to unpack to distract himself from the hollow feeling in his stomach.

As Sam is inspecting the tiny sink beside the bed, the door flies open and a tall dark-haired guy stumbles in awkwardly dragging two heavy looking suitcases.

“Oh, hi. I guess we’re roomies,” he says cheerily and holds out his hand to Sam, who takes it. “‘Name’s Brady.”

“Sam. Nice to meet you.”

Brady’s mother bustles in with a box of books and stationary and the two of them begin to argue about his father’s birthday and how he’ll be travelling back home. It's a flurry of activity: ruffling papers and clothes, conversations floating past the open door, someone’s sound system blasting music down the hall, an errant Frisbee bouncing off the door frame, while Sam stands against the wall, silent and unnoticed in the middle of it all. Brady and his mother leave for the courtyard, the door slams behind them and the next instant, all is quiet once more. 

He sits down and looks curiously at Brady’s desk. Covered with photos of school friends and student advice booklets, a Star Wars DVD boxset and a full on frickin’ _desk tidy_ full of pencils and Post-its. Sam has a lockbox of fake credit cards, a forged birth certificate and enough underwear to last a week at most. He has none of the mementos of a life eighteen years cultivated. Jesus, he doesn’t even have his own _pen_. 

He wasn’t prepared for this, what was he _thinking_? He can’t just fall into being a normal college student, mingle at mixers as though his proud, loving parents had just dropped him off with a hug and a year’s supply of cup-noodles. What's he gonna he say when people ask where he's from? He sits on his bare mattress in the stillness and thinks about all the places he’s been and lived and slept, and never once has been able to lay his head somewhere he could call home. But at least he’d had Dean. He hadn’t been alone. Now, he is surrounded by people on all sides, and he’s never felt more alone. 

It's a powerful feeling; overwhelming, unknown, and utterly terrifying. But if the life he’s lived so far has taught him only one thing, it is courage. He’s faced down monsters and stabbed nightmares in the heart. He’s improvised Latin spells down the phone as his father and brother fought for their lives at the other end of the line; he could work indices and appendices like a scholar before most kids knew what they were for. He’s broken into museums and talked his way onto a _goddamn military airbase_. He was terrified then too. He can certainly handle a bunch of eighteen year olds and figure out his way around a college library. 

He looks at the neon orange flyer advertising the student societies fair on Brady’s desk and all at once that hollow in his stomach is filled with anticipation and hope and courage. This is it, everything he’s been fighting for since middle school; his fresh start. He's ready to be his own Sam. 

He takes a deep breath, grabs his first ever set of keys and heads for the door.


End file.
